I received an intriguing email from one of my Japanese colleagues this week who had been told that I used to be an English teacher, asking about the use of definite and indefinite articles. Think I helped but can’t be sure. It got me thinking about languages though and of course I had lots of opportunities last week in Val ( dig me ) to exercise my command of the French. Arriving a little late for our lunch booking at Eidelweiss restaurant I still don’t know why it caused such merriment amongst the rest of my party when I excused ourselves by saying:
Pardon me, je parle pas Franski tres bien.
Je suis desolee. Nous sommes retards.
What on earth is wrong with that?
Mobile phones. Bane of my blinking life. I havn’t ranted about them for a while but this has been a trying month on that front. I finally succumbed and dispensed with my beloved iPhone switching to a Blackberry which has been a joyous, if expensive, experience. My phone bill, with Hen in Cambodia only partially to blame, spiralled out of control (£448 this month....u wot?!) but this was nothing compared to the frustrations of Bob’s phone saga last week. He lost his phone on the slopes of Val D’Isere. I sent a text pleading anyone who found it to return it. Lo and behold, just five minutes later an awfully nice sounding boy – turned out to be reading history at Nottingham – rang me. Hallelulia. Phone found, but it turned out he was staying in Tignes and his Turkish girl friend had suffered a suspected broken leg so he couldn’t get it to us immediately. A fairly convoluted series of arrangements the following day, which included me side stepping half way up a mountain to get to the rendezvous in time, eventually led to the exchange take place just above the Tommeuses chair lift. £20 – from Bob’s savings– was handed over by way of a thank you and phone and owner were gleefully reunited. No doubt what would have followed would have been a flurry of expensive texts between him and current flame, but instead he whizzed away, in celebration, with me and the boy from Nottingham watching on in horror, over a jump and fell onto an icy piste, smashing both his brand new sunglasses and his phone. It’s enough to make you weep.
Desk move over the weekend. Absolutely hate these things not least because I am going to be sitting right outside the headmasters office.
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